


the soul of the matter

by SafelyCapricious



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse, Soulmates, Unreliable Narrator, soul marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Everyone is born with a way to find their soulmate, but fate is rarely so simple or so kind.The team faces a soulmark-forger con-artist as well as truths about themselves. Just how important is fate in the hands of five fair criminals?





	the soul of the matter

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time participating in a mini-bang, and I didn't totally fail! Go me? 
> 
> I was lucky enough for [InklingDancer](http://archiveofourown.org/users/InklingDancer) to chose to make art for me! And it is excellent!

 

“Soulmates,” Archie tells her, “are a liability. The marks are distinctive and people will remember them far longer than they’ll remember your face or features.”

It’s a side comment – hardly the point of the lesson – but she takes it to heart. Perhaps a little more than she should.

 It doesn’t take her any time at all to steal the equipment, but far longer to learn how to use it. Archie doesn’t notice because she’s still getting her other lessons completed fine.

He doesn’t realize she’d even heard him until he’s preparing her for a job and brings out his makeup kit. “Now Parker,” he says, “I will show you how to properly cover up that soul mark of yours.”

Parker freezes, hesitates, and then tilts her chin up, “I don’t have a soul mark.”

“Of course you do, you –“ She pulls her shirt down so he can see her shoulder where the mark was. Where it’s not anymore.

He touches the now unmarked skin lightly, his expression still and says, “Oh Parker…” He turns away, runs a hand over his face and shakes his head before focusing again.

 He doesn’t ask her if she remembers what it looked like, and she’s glad. Because she would’ve been tempted to lie to him and she’s not supposed to lie to Archie. But of _course_ she remembers what it looked like. The dark squiggly bird was the only proof she ever had that someone would love her, eventually – that someone _had_ to.

But now she has Archie so she doesn’t need her soulmate.

It’s fine.

 

***

 

Aimee is the first girl Eliot knows who doesn’t care that their marks don’t match up. His is a dark angry looking blob, hers made up of delicate curlicues that he likes to trace with his fingers. 

“Just because we aren’t soulmates, Eliot,” she says, “doesn’t mean I can’t love you with my whole heart.”

He can’t help but wonder, later, when it’s all gone so wrong if it would’ve been different if they _were_ soulmates.

But it’s too late by then. He’s made his choices and he’s not the sort of man to give his regrets time to hurt him.

He’s not sure if it’s Croatia or Serbia or Syria or Algeria or somewhere else where he takes the wound that destroys his mark. He just looks down one day in the shower and realizes that it’s a mess of scar tissue and burns. Part of the blob still sticks out a little from the mess but it’s not – it doesn’t look like much of anything anymore.

As he’s gotten older, men and women have cared less about his mark matching theirs so it’s fine.

He’s never wanted a soulmate anyways.

It’s fine.

 

***

 

Alec has high hopes, when he’s young, that the Internet will revolutionize finding soulmates. Obviously everyone is going to take advantage of it – post pics and find their other half even if they’re halfway across the world.

The reality is…less than that.

Match making services charge exorbitant amounts to take your mark and see if they match up, but after the first one starts there’s millions of them and no guarantee that your soulmate will chose the same service as you do. (He, obviously, hacks his way in to all of them, but the only hits he ever gets are so obviously photoshopped catfish that it’s not even worth ruining their lives for the lie. He does anyways.)

He considers just systematically hacking through everyone’s personal files to see if there are any mark-selfies which match his, but that’s a little creepier than he’s willing to be.

Besides, as Nana says, “They’re your soulmate, Alec, of course you’ll find each other. Otherwise you’d hardly share a mark, would you?”

And Nana would never lie to him.

So it’s fine. He has time to find his soulmate and he’s got plenty of pictures of his weird star shaped soul mark incase something were to happen to his.

It’s fine.

 

***

 

Faking soul marks is the lowest of the low – not something even the most hardened criminal does.

Some say there’s a curse, if you fake your soul mark – if you try to use someone’s soul mate against them.

It would be silly to believe that, of course, everyone knows it’s superstitious nonsense.

But everyone also knows a kid in elementary school who tried to get their crush to kiss them by pretending they had the same mark – and everyone knows how that kid then had the worst luck, spilled sodas at lunch, ice cream falling to the ground, breaking every toy they touch – everyone saw it happen. Or has a friend who saw it happen. Or a friend of a friend.

For criminals, there are entire playbooks on how to hook someone without being their soul mate – to make them fall for the con regardless. It’s a point of pride, for most; and a sensible precaution for all.

No one wants a curse; no one wants to tar their own soul.

Which is probably why none of them see it coming.

 

***

 

“Why?” Parker asks, peering at Sophie through narrowed eyes, head tilted dramatically to the side as if by changing her view she can change her understanding.

“What do you mean ‘why’, Parker?” Sophie asks, voice soft in that way that means she’s going to get all emotional. Real or fake, Parker isn’t sure and doesn’t want to ask. That always makes Sophie _more_ emotional – possibly as a cover? – and then Nate gets all frowny and Parker ends up hiding in the rafters until it all calms down. Or until Eliot lures her back down with a grudging bowl of lucky charms marshmallows, or something better. He’d done something with cinnamon and apples that she’d liked recently, even if she suspected it was probably healthy.

 

Archie hadn’t really prepared her for this sort of thing – but then, he’d told her not to work with anyone, so he probably just hadn’t anticipated it as being a problem. He would’ve prepared her for it if he’d known she’d end up here, she wants to believe.

She tilts her head the other way and tries to figure out where the confusion could be. Why is a pretty straightforward question, but Sophie doesn’t get it so…She lets out a huff of breath and moves, crossing her arms on the table and resting her chin on them. “It’s just grifting, isn’t it?”

“It’s just – lying about your soul mark is _not_ grifting, Parker!” Sophie’s voice is loud and horrified, and Parker is suddenly extra relieved no one else is in the room. If _Sophie_ is this upset about it, she can only imagine what the others would say. And she looks actually upset – not fake upset like she gets to make someone fetch her something or make the mark fall in love with her sometimes.

Parker can already imagine Nate’s pinched expression, and Eliot’s head shaking and mumbling, and Hardison looking at her like _she_ had stabbed him with a fork or something, all hurt and confused. Not that she’d ever stab Hardison with a fork, or Eliot – or even Nate. Not even if they really deserved it because they ate her donut or something.

She reigns her dancing thoughts back in, and shrugs her shoulders without dislodging her chin from its resting place. “You pretend to be other people – like, people our marks are _related_ too, regularly. This is just that. Only not family – but you make people want to be your lovers too! Like this guy and his soul mark thing.”

Sophie’s hand settles, tentatively, on Parker’s arm as she says, gently, “It’s not the same thing,” she shakes her head, voice going even softer, “it’s not.”

Parker lets out a huff of breath and throws her hands in the air, settling back in the seat and crossing her arms. “How?” she demands.

Sophie’s hand falls to the table as she stares across it sadly. “Your soul mark,” she says, after a moment long enough that Parker is sure she’s not going to answer at all, “is a promise. It’s a promise that you’ll find someone – and it’s a promise to them, that you’re out there. It’s…special. It’s your soul reaching out for it’s other half and…No one,” she slashes her hand through the air, angry almost, before getting control of herself and pulling it close, steepling it with the other before her, “should interfere with that.”

 The chair Parker is in rocks back, and she shifts her weight so it’s balancing like that, on two legs, as she furrows her brow, because it doesn’t make _sense_. “You convinced the last mark to be so in love with you he didn’t _care_ that your marks didn’t match, how is that better? Or is that worse? Are we worse?”

The victory – and the crowing Sophie had done, after – is visible in the smile she tries to hide behind her teacup as she takes a small sip. “It’s different, because he still has his soulmate.”

The thump as the chair returns back to its default placement, with four legs on the ground, echoes through the room. “So?” Parker demands, exasperated and tired of not understanding. “He didn’t want her. He wanted _you_.”

“But,” Sophie says, calm and serene again, “he knew I _wasn’t_ his soulmate, and he made his choice. So she’s still out there somewhere, waiting for him.”

Parker wants to point out that he is in _jail_ , so it hardly matters who is where, waiting for him, but there are footsteps approaching and she doesn’t want to have to hide in the rafters while the dust settles. (Hiding in the rafters because it’s _fun_ is different, it’s not as much fun when she doesn’t have a choice.)

“Where is everyone?” Nate asks, as he walks into the room, mug clutched in his hand and Parker can smell the acrid taste of burnt coffee, thick on the back of her tongue, from where she’s sitting. She wrinkles her nose.

“I don’t know,” Sophie gives a pointed look to the cup, “I am not their mother.”

“Hardison!” Nate turns away, ignores her, and Parker sighs and rounds the table – if he’s calling for everyone than the briefing is probably going to start. Maybe they’ll just casually mention why Sophie seems more upset about this guy than the judge who was stealing life savings from the old folks at his church. (Parker is fairly sure that old people money probably smells like old people, and just cannot imagine why it would be worth it. Banks have the best money, not old people who are hiding it in their mattress.)

Parker perches on the backrest of one of the chairs, facing the screen, fingers itching, and waits as Nate calls and cajoles the others to come. 

Hardison approaches it all with his natural flair, clutching his chest with shock and emotion before he gets all serious and gets down to business.

She zones out a little, once she’s gotten the gist – guy strolls in, draws some soul marks on, charms some rich lady into thinking he’s her soulmate, makes bank, steals some things, fakes his own death, moves on to the next one.

She zones back in when Hardison starts calling the guy more names than usual – Eliot nodding along grimly (and Sophie shooting her looks, like this proves something.)

Parker doesn’t want to say it’s not bad, it clearly is, she just doesn’t understand why it’s somehow _worse_ , and when Nate asks if there are any questions, she refuses to raise her hand and ask.

It doesn’t matter if she doesn’t get it – it upsets her team more than usual, she knows it’s bad, so they’ll take him down and that will be that. And as long as Sophie doesn’t share their conversation with any of the others, she’ll only have to deal with weirdness from her until she falls into the grift, like she always does.

Making a mental note to try to avoid Sophie for a few days, Parker slips out as soon as the meeting is adjourned, her task made easier by Nate ambushing Sophie with some question before anyone has moved from their chairs.

 

 

***

 

Hardison is bleeding.

Hardison is bleeding and Eliot is moving towards where the bullet came from before Hardison has even realized he’s bleeding. 

Eliot can hear Hardison’s panicked realization over the comms, but Sophie’s there and he knows she’ll be able to keep him calm enough to get him out while Eliot takes care of this.

Hardison is bleeding and it doesn’t even matter that it’s only a graze against his shoulder, what matters is that someone took a shot at Hardison and Eliot is going to take care of it.

The world moves slowly around Eliot as he climbs the stairs, three at a time, and takes out the would-be sniper. There’s no banter to be had here, not when he takes out the first or the second or the third.

(Maybe, Eliot will think later, they should’ve anticipated snipers from a mark who liked to fake his own death that way. But firing real bullets is a long shot from firing a fake gun and letting your mark explode their own ‘wound’.)

Hardison is still panicking over the comms when the world finally settles back into its normal rhythm.

Eliot looks at the bodies around him and scoffs – no real substantial training from any of them, obviously hired more for how stereotypically scary they look than skill, and it shows.

He’s even more pissed he fucked up enough that Hardison got shot.

That’s on him and he’s not sure how he’ll make it up to Hardison.

“Stupid,” he mutters to himself and bends down to pick up a knife one of the guys had dropped, because the man himself might not have been any good but that was a quality blade.

“You’re fine,” Parker says over the comms, and Eliot winces. He’d thought Sophie was there with Hardison – Sophie would definitely be his choice for comforting Hardison right now. Parker is too, well, Parker to respond appropriately. And even if Hardison knows intellectually that her reaction to her own emotional distress isn’t normal, it can’t be helping him any right now. So as much as Hardison loves her – and Eliot knows he does, can read it on his face plain as day – Parker’s reaction here isn’t going to calm his panic down.

“I took care of it,” he says over the comms, hoping to interrupt whatever circle of chaos has to be going on down there. “Hired muscle, probably the ones who help him fake his deaths,” he says, before Nate can ask.

“Oh god,” Hardison moans, and then there’s a yelp and –

“You’re _fine_ ,” Parker reiterates, and Eliot rubs the bridge of his nose and hopes like hell Parker hasn’t just hit the wound.

“Where’s Sophie?” he asks, as he finishes tying up the goons and starts to make his way back down off the catwalk to the rest of his team, extra alert to any added threat.

“She had to go get ready for her _date_ tonight,” Nate says. Eliot rolls his eyes and wonders why he even wanted to stay with the team. Nate’s disdain for the plan that he made is so clear, and everyone knows why it is, but Nate won’t admit it. Which is why Sophie has been shoving it in his face and –

God. Eliot needs a drink.

But probably not as much as Hardison.

“Don’t – fuck,” Hardison is saying to Parker as Eliot finally gets to them. Parker is wrapping Hardison’s upper arm and shoulder to the best of her ability, lips drawn and tight and eyes worried.

“Shut up,” she says, voice still a little too high to be convincing, “you’re fine.”

Hardison is about as pale as he can be, dark skin gone slightly grey, clutching a cell phone in both of his hands and gritting his teeth.

“Lets get you out of here,” Eliot offers, once Parker’s secured a fairly good bandage.

 “I don’t think I can walk,” Hardison says, matter of factly, gaze turned away from his arm.

Eliot ignores him, reaching down and hauling him up easily, wrapping his arm around Hardison’s waist and slinging Hardison’s good arm over his shoulder before he can protest. Once Hardison realizes it’s happening he manages to take most of his own weight, but he is swaying into Eliot more than he should be, and the knot of tension in Eliot’s chest gets tighter.

“Come on man, lets get you home,” he doesn’t meet Parker’s eyes as she darts around them, making sure they’re leaving no trace and that there’s nothing in their path for a lackluster Hardison to trip over. He being worried isn’t gonna help Parker any, so the best he can do is just move forward – the best he can do is get his family somewhere safe while Hardison heals and they sort this out.

(Not that he’s going to stop hunting down the piece of trash that caused this, no, Alan Joseph is going down.)

 Eliot is distracted when they finally get to Lucille, and it’s only Hardison’s noise of pure panic that keeps him from handing over the keys to Parker. “Fuck,” he mutters, under his breath, as he helps Hardison settle into the passenger seat.

He doesn’t fuss, he just takes a moment to make sure Hardison isn’t going to jar his arm before barking at Parker to get in the van and taking off.

It turns out that Hardison isn’t just grey from blood loss, and he’s not just panicked about the pain, but no one finds that out until after they’ve got Alan Joseph locked up for life.

Eliot blames himself for that too.

 

***

 

“Oh Hardison,” Sophie breathes, hand over her mouth and eyes lipid with tears.

 Alec forces a smile and fights back the heat of tears and the sting of a sob in his throat – this was why he didn’t want the team to find out, he knew how’d they take it and it makes it real and it makes it hurt again.

(It shouldn’t matter. It really shouldn’t. He has pictures; he has a _lot_ of pictures. But it still hurts and he can’t help but wonder if his soulmate is even going to believe him when he shows them the photos – it’s not like you couldn’t photoshop on a soul mark, after all – and he of all people has the skills to pull that off. But no, he can’t think like that. He has pictures. He won’t lose his soulmate over this.)

Nate squeezes his shoulder – the one not still in a sling – and doesn’t say anything.

But it’s the last two members of the team that Alec has trouble looking at, so instead he focuses back on Sophie and keeps forcing his smile. “It’s fine,” he says, “I have pictures.” He shrugs lightly, grimacing from what a bad idea that was around his smile, but finishes confidently. “That’s all you really need.”

Sophie still looks like he’s about to cry and Alec is just going to keep smiling and –

“You have _us_ ,” Parker says, voice uncertain, “why would you even need a soulmate?”

“Parker…” Sophie starts – but then she stops and Alec can’t make out what the looks they’re exchanging are supposed to mean, but whatever it is ends with Sophie shaking her head and shrugging and touching Parker lightly on the shoulder before turning her attention back to Alec. “Photos are, certainly, all you really need,” she agrees, smiling warmly.

Alec keeps smiling at her, but finally manages to steel himself enough to look at the others and – Nate’s wandered off to the kitchen and neither Eliot or Parker are anywhere to be found and he doesn’t want to think about why that hurts, either.

 

***

“I want to see it,” Parker says, leaning over the back of Hardison’s chair – Hardison yelps and flails, hand sending a cascade of empty orange soda bottles to the ground.

“Shit, where the hell did you come from? The door is _locked_.”

She tilts her head to the side and meets his wide-eyed gaze evenly. He obviously realizes the obviousness of her answer and just rubs at his shirt over his heart and shakes his head.

“Alright,” he says, breath evening out, “what was so important you had to accost me in my _room_ when I was having a little alone time? We’re gonna have to have another talk about privacy, aren’t we, now that Nate and Sophie are gone?”

“I want to see it,” Parker repeats, patiently.

Hardison bends down – and she admires the curve of his spine and has to fight the urge to run her hand down the line – and starts to clean up the knocked over bottles. “What is it?”

“The picture,” she clarifies, still very patiently.

“The picture,” he echoes, brow furrowed. “What picture?”

She takes a moment to decide if he’s being deliberately obtuse before tossing her head and putting her hands on her hips. “The picture,” she emphasizes carefully, “of your soul mark. I want to see it.”

“I –“ Hardison stops and looks at her and she can’t make out what his face is doing so she turns away to stare pointedly at the computer that she’s confident is housing the picture in question. “Why?” he asks, finally, voice doing something she doesn’t know how to categorize.

She frowns. “It’s important. You and Sophie both thought it was important that you have pictures. And I don’t understand why it’s so important. So if I see them, then I’ll understand.”

“Parker…” She doesn’t like the soft tone of voice – not this one. It’s not the soft tone of voice he used to explain pretzels to her, it’s the one he used to use more and she doesn’t like it. She turns pointedly back to the computer and waits. “Okay,” he concedes after a moment, “okay.”

It isn’t one picture it turns out, it’s a ton of photos, and he’s got one pulled up before she can even try to count how many are actually there.

She examines it carefully, more drawn to the smile on Hardison’s face in the picture (or even the rest of his bare torso) than the mark on his arm.

She still doesn’t get it. Or maybe he doesn’t get it. She catches sight of his face when she turns to ask and he looks sad, so she reaches out and closes the picture window and gets between him and the computer.

“The picture is stupid,” she says, “the picture doesn’t matter. You don’t need that on your arm and it’s okay it’s gone because me and Eliot are your soul mates, so what does it matter?” And she nods decisively and kisses him on the forehead like Sophie sometimes used to do, because she’s gone now and it seems like the sort of thing to do in this situation walks out the door.

She even locks it behind her, after all, she doesn’t want to have to go through the privacy lecture again.

 

***

 

“Eliot,” Hardison says, voice alarmed enough that Eliot actually looks up from what he’s cooking to look at the other man. Hardison looks rough – like he hasn’t slept in a few days, and definitely like he hasn’t changed clothes or showered in the same amount of time.

They’re between missions, after they realized just how many they’d have from their source they realized they had to start scheduling them so as not to get burnt out. Hardison usually disappears for a few days when they’re between missions, doesn’t come out of his room except to raid the fridge and use the bathroom, so it’s not unusual to see him looking a little rough, at around day four, but he doesn’t also usually look panicked.

Before Eliot can ask what’s wrong though, Hardison leans on the kitchen counter, not seeing the cutting board, and suddenly there’s chopped bell pepper scattered over the floor. “Damnit, Hardison,” he says with feeling.

“Sorry,” Hardison says, and then he just carefully lowers himself into a chair and Eliot can’t even rant when Hardison looks this alarmed about something.

Resigned, he asks, “What is it?” before Hardison can do anymore damage to his kitchen.

“Parker said we’re soul mates.” Hardison says in a rush, and Eliot feels his heart do something complicated like transmute into lead.

“So?” he asks, grabbing a knife and starting to dice the onion in front of him as fine as he can, “you want my advice or something? I ain’t gonna give you advice on how to date Parker.”

“What?” Hardison asks, elbow slipping against the counter and banging against the cabinets. Hardison doesn’t even flinch. “Not….not ‘we’ as in me and Parker – well, yeah, me and Parker, but you too. She said we’re all soulmates. The three of us. But that doesn’t _happen._ ”

Eliot’s knife gets stuck in the cutting board and he takes a breath before saying, “Sure it does – multiple soul mates isn’t unheard of,” and his voice sounds soft above the pounding of his heart.

“No, man, I mean –“ Hardison lets out a breath, fingers tapping incessantly against the counter, “I mean we don’t get that lucky. That doesn’t happen. And I don’t – I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not. I don’t know what your soul mark looks like or, or hers and –“

“Well,” Eliot says, interrupting, “that’s gonna be a bit of a problem.”

 

***

 

“I don’t remember what it looked like,” Eliot admits, not looking at either of them, and Alec feels like his heart is breaking even though it’s beating just fine. It’s probably just indigestion from the pasta Eliot had made them, maybe from the floor peppers that he’d included. (Oh, he’d cleaned them, or said he had, when he’d sent Alec to shower and change, but they’d still been on the floor. Maybe they were tainted.)

“Does it matter?” Parker asks, eyes sharp and arms crossed defensively.

“It doesn’t – you can’t just say we’re soul mates and not –“ Alec feels helpless in trying to explain this to Parker.

She rolls her eyes and touches his shoulder and he shuts up.

“I know what your mark looks like, I know what my mark looks like, and I’ve seen what’s left of Eliot’s mark –“

“When?” Eliot asks, but she keeps going.

“And his might be messed up but you can definitely see where it matches up. They’re the same. We’re soulmates. And we love each other.” She says it so matter of fact that Alec doesn’t know how to do anything but gape at her.

“Where _is_ your mark, Parker?” Eliot asks, after a long moment, and she tilts her head and lets her hair fall over the side of her face.

“I got rid of it.”

Alec feels ice through his veins and he doesn’t know what to say. Luckily, Eliot’s there, and he recovers faster. “You…got rid of it?” he echoes, voice uncertain.

“Yup,” she says, nodding, “so I don’t have any distinguishing marks.”

“Right,” Alec says, uncertain.

“But here, look,” Parker says, and then she’s got Eliot’s collar pulled all the way down so he’s being half strangled by his shirt and Alec can see the edge of scar tissue and the dark ink of a mark for a moment before Eliot starts to struggle and –

The loud sound of a ripping shirt doesn’t exactly surprise Alec, and he always kind of figured that if they did, all three, become a thing it would involve ripped clothes, but not like this.

“See!” Parker says proudly, as Eliot swears at her and clutches what remains of his shirt, but his shoulder where his mark was is still visible.

It’s a mess of scar tissue – not like the fairly clean damage to Alec’s – and all he can see is one small wiggly triangular shaped blob edging out of the mess.

It…might be the same as his? It’s hard to tell. It’s barely a tenth of a soul mark.

For a lack of anything else to say, and feeling pressure from Parker’s gaze, Alec manages, “Uh,” and a shrug.

“It doesn’t matter,” Eliot says, gaze suddenly intense and boring into Alec’s.

“What?” says Alec, feeling slow and stupid, especially now that Parker and Eliot are exchanging a look that has Parker smiling giddily and relaxing into the couch.

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t tell if the marks match,” he says.

“They do match,” Parker chirps in, reaching out a hand that Alec is helpless to resist and she pulls him closer.

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t tell if the marks match,” Eliot repeats, “what matters is what we feel and –“

Alec feels like he should protest – soul marks are soul marks and they do matter but – But Eliot is sitting there shirtless and Parker and pulling him so they’re all pressed together and his heart feels full and – yeah.

 Yeah. “You’re right,” he says, letting out a breath and letting a weight fall off his shoulders, “yeah, you’re right. We’re soul mates no matter what some marks say.”

 

***

 

“Do you think that they’ll be okay?” Sophie asks and Nate groans, falling back on the bed away from her. It was just starting to get promising too. He’d thought that them leaving the team would keep these interruptions from happening.

He’d never been more disappointed to be wrong.

“Is now really the time to –“ he tries to ask, gesturing at the room around them and particularly the disarray of the bed.

“I just worry,” she says, sternly, crossing her arms.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” he says into his hands that are still over his face. “I, on the other hand…”

“You’ll be fine,” she says, slapping a hand to his soul mark that makes him wince. “Maybe we should call them…”

“I am sure,” he says, leaning back up and slowly coaxing her back down with kisses to her matching soul mark, “that they will be fine and _not_ want the interruption.” And then, before she can protest more, he does something he knows will get her focus back where it should be.

 

***

 

“You know this is a distinguishing mark, right?” Alec asks her, teasing, and she rolls her eyes and punches his shoulder.

“Shut up,” she says, and then she leans forward to kiss him.

“Hey,” Eliot protests, and she laughs and leans back so he can kiss Alec as well.

She takes the opportunity to kiss the new mark on Eliot’s shoulder, then the one on Alec’s – she has to push him up off the bed a little to manage, but Eliot helps her, pulling him up into a kiss that has gotten rather serious. She can’t kiss the back of her own shoulder, so she just glances at it and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna yell at me on tumblr about my weird overuse of some words, or, you know, something about the characters, you can find me [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/), and my lovely artist can be found on tumblr [here](http://inklingdancer.tumblr.com/)


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